Search Results for: koenekoop

Vision Quest is the FFB’s educational program series that brings trusted information about emerging sight-saving treatments to people living with vision loss. This year, Vision Quest brought together more than 860 people at 9 different events across Canada. The entire FFB staff participates in Vision Quest because it gives us the opportunity to learn directly…

Special guest story by Dr. Robert K. Koenekoop MD PhD Paediatric Ophthalmologist and Molecular Biologist Professor of Paediatric surgery McGill University For the first time in the history of medicine we are seeing, developing, and testing treatments for blindness. At the same time, we are testing the safety and effectiveness of personalized medicines with gene…

Story guest authored by Shaini Saravanamuthu. Shaini is a member of the National Young Leaders Program at the Foundation Fighting Blindness. February 19, 2011 is a day that I will never forget. As I patiently waited in my new optometrist’s waiting room, I hoped that my vision hadn’t changed. My biggest worry at the time was spending…

In 2015, the Foundation invested in research to understand vision, preserve vision, and restore sight. All of the Foundation’s funded projects are “translational” research, which means that the long-term goal of each project is to develop new treatments for vision loss and blindness. (Watch our video recap of the Top 10 Discoveries of 2015, or…

An international research project, led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal, reports that a new oral medication is showing significant progress in restoring vision to patients with Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA). Until now, this inherited retinal disease that causes visual impairment ranging from reduced vision to complete blindness,…

This past weekend, we were delighted to bring our educational conference series, Vision Quest, to Montréal for the very first time. We were honoured to be in Montréal for three key reasons. First, the people. Second, the research. And third, to celebrate our new partnership with the Montréal Children’s Hospital Foundation (MCHF). 1. The People…

“Thanks to people like you, I have support and I have hope.” – Nikita Smith, age 12, from her speech at Ride for Sight Alberta Nikita Smith puts a personal face on the recent discovery of a new gene linked with Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a blinding, childhood eye disease that she lives with everyday….

“It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” said Dr. Robert Koenekoop. “It was so obvious to all of us that this was big.” With ongoing support from the Foundation Fighting Blindness (FFB), Dr. Koenekoop has spent more than a decade searching for genes that could open up new sight-saving therapies. What makes this…

For the past 20 years, scientists have been discovering the genetic mutations that underlie inherited retinal diseases like retinitis pigmentosa. As the technology to evaluate genetic mutations becomes more readily available, scientists are able to look at and evaluate samples from a large number of people. Finding genes and mutations are important, as this endeavour…